Former NY mayor Michael Bloomberg flies to Israel in defiance of ban

'Flight restrictions hand Hamas an undeserved victory', says millionaire Mike
Bloomberg as he flies on an El Al plane to Tel Aviv to prove it is safe to
travel to Israel

Photo: REUTERS

By Josie Ensor, US correspondent

4:10AM BST 23 Jul 2014

American billionaire Michael Bloomberg has said he was jetting into Tel Aviv to show solidarity with Israel and called for a US flight ban to be lifted immediately.

The move from the former mayor of New York, a city of eight million with the largest Jewish population in the US, puts him at odds with the government that backed the ban to protect US citizens from possible Hamas rocket attacks.

Mr Bloomberg urged the US Federal Aviation Administration to reverse the ban, saying it had handed Hamas an "undeserved victory" in a more than two-week conflict with Israel.

He announced in a statement via his official Twitter account that he was boarding an Israeli airlines flight.

"This evening I will be flying on El Al to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli people and to demonstrate that it is safe to fly in and out of Israel," he wrote.